The development of the internet has created new avenues for transactions which previously would have taken place in person at a “brick and mortar” establishment, or over the phone or by mail. Central in the development of this new transaction space has been the utilization of the internet browser (initially created to facilitate internet data connections for the non-technical user), a computer software program which may be used by a computer user to actively search web sites for products or information that the user is seeking. Once a person has found what they want at a web site, they can take various actions to initiate transactions to purchase products or information featured there, or to download electronic media content for free if that is an option.
So it is that the great race on the internet has become to establish one's destination as a frequently visited web site, and to build up over time the traffic of your web site much as a radio or TV station or periodical would build up an audience or reader base. To this end there has been on one hand a premium on short, catchy names that hopefully people can remember long enough to enter into their browser location input the next time they have their browser window opened up. Even under the most optimum circumstances this is not an especially efficient way of recruiting visitors, depending as it does on the fleeting memory of the potential customer. The fundamental point of incessantly repeated advertising is to try to imprint this information long enough to make an actual customer connection.
The other main thrust of visitor recruitment, and more effective from a direct action standpoint, is the attempt to proliferate links back to one's web site on as many other web pages as possible. In this way hopefully more people will encounter a reference to one's product or service on other sites they may have come to, resulting in them immediately clicking through to visit your own site. This is most likely to be successful if such links are prominently displayed on high traffic areas of sites with a related theme, but general interest sites with many of their own visitors now sell pricey banner ad space to advertisers of products with broad appeal of their own. Search engines are even tailoring the ads presented on their page to match the profile of what that particular person might be searching for.
But the strength of the browser model, the ability to pursue an infinitely branching search path, is also its weakness from the standpoint of a service or product supplier trying to get the attention of a surfer long enough to complete a transaction. A web visitor can be easily distracted by something else on a web page, or with a single click can go back to some other page they were viewing a moment before. What is most important is that a particular visitor could be anybody, not identified in any meaningful respect on their first visit, except by whatever information the hosting server can read about their browser software version, by a reference to the previous page they might have clicked through from, or by the numerical internet designation number being used by the client system for that connection, which for many surfers is not a fixed identifier.
In short, with each new visitor one is starting from scratch each time in terms of establishing a customer relationship. The various one click models of doing business over the internet depend on a customer first entering the information necessary to complete a financial transaction on some previous visit, and then storing some part of that information at the client end in the form of a browser “cookie,” intended as a data storage area that can only be retrieved by the web site that initiated its storage in the first place. The cookie or whatever authorization created on behalf of one web site cannot be used by another even if the customer were so inclined.
It has been easy enough to say, “Come to our web site,” but in many cases that is not what would be easiest for the customer. People use their computers for many other kinds of software programs besides their internet browser, and the average computer user does not spend their entire time “surfing” the web. For example, if one is listening to a radio station and hears an ad for a product, even if one is on the computer at the time, one has to start the browser program if it is not already running, enter the web address of the web site mentioned (subject to typographical errors), hunt around for the product ordering page, enter one's address and billing information perhaps over multiple screens, with each step representing potential for distraction, second thoughts of doubt, error, and with it a corresponding loss of yield.
Some tentative steps have been taken away from the browser-based model by some of the internet streaming media services. In these cases a standalone media player has been combined with the option of downloading for a price a possession or one time experience copy of the electronic content the user wishes to access, or to sell other similar content based on a preview or reference to an upcoming event. So it is that music tracks can be purchased through a music player, video content can be purchased by a video player, and so on. But it is still the duty of the user to actively search the interface for the content they think they might want to purchase. And even according to those models there has been no anticipation that other products and services of a different character than the media streams themselves might be delivered based on selections from the media player interface.
In light of the foregoing, it is respectfully submitted that a broader non-browser model for the processing of electronic transactions has the greater future potential as a way of doing business. Such a model offers more than a singular advantage. In the first instance, a dedicated piece of resident software with its own internet communication capabilities can be configured to always be definitively identified according to its user by a server system function it contacts.
Second, with no limitation on its custom capabilities, billing information can be stored for the instantaneous at will use of the user of the client system as to any product or service the server system might make available. Third, the server system can on its own initiative, on that of the client, or on some periodic basis, transmit interactive media content for display to the user, instead of just passively waiting for visitors, thereby synchronizing direct action functions to immediately place orders for the referenced products or services. Additionally, the software can always still interface and connect back through the default resident browser itself.
This disclosure teaches how to construct new models of user friendly relationships with novel methods of operation as outlined above, and with further advantageous aspects to integrate the process of product and service fulfillment in ways not previously possible. In this way the connectivity of the internet can be harnessed to more efficiently deliver the products and services people want in their daily lives. And in doing so, a software application can claim for itself territory on the user computer display screen now being left to the winds of random whim or the chance of a search result.